Payday 2: Crimewave Edition Review

"Crime hits consoles, again"

Campaign

Who's ready for yet another round of heisting with the crew you should know well at this point. I certainly was as I ventured out into the world of crime and picked some locations. I went ahead to rob a jewelry store, a club and then smash items at a mall. It was basically a string of the exact same areas and places from which I've cased many times before. For those that have played the past versions of Payday 2 there's nothing really new about this version except for it being up to pace with the PC iteration in terms of DLC and content. In this game it's all about picking the right crew and the right heist. It's absolutely no fun to play this by yourself though with a team it can be quite a hilarious time. To elaborate on the lack of fun for an individual to play solo it comes down to slow paced gameplay with tons of enemy troops and enemies that lack basic function. They do shoot about though they don't carry bags or really do any cooperative assists along with occasional glitches causing them to just stand around. Essentially they're useless and just side turrets to block enemies, I guess to be fair they also attempt to revive you in the midst of battle so that helps. Back on track, Payday is about building up your assets and level in order to tackle more difficult missions. Some of which actually take multiple jobs to finish and create some unique areas. My team went and did memorable things like breaking into a FBI building or stealing some priceless art. Another great one was the time we tried to cook meth, honestly the first time I wasn't paying attention and lit the lab up in flames. Needless to say that particular mission was a bust, though the other times were a bunch of fun. I think that instead of spending so much time on unique larger levels that maybe more smaller missions which you do more often should have a larger variety of areas to take on. I also got annoyed by the weird tail missions where everyone gets sprayed out in a terrible location to hold onto the bags for a couple minutes. There's no cover and it's a weird change of pace which presented empty and boring areas. As far as a plot or story I can't really say that I found much of one to be present as it really is just a string of missions to pick from.

Gameplay

First off would like to nail that the map menu is really laggy and unresponsive, though they're supposed to patch for launch I'd still like to note it in case it isn't finished. Inside gameplay plays similar to many first person shooters though there are options for you to control the crowd. You can tie some up and get others to hit the floor, a hugely missed opportunity for Kinect voice inputs! From there you lug this awful drill to do its thing for a couple minutes as you look around and shoot dozens of oncoming cops. Though this is mainly a great chat time to talk about the mission, usually of how the stealth didn't go as planned. It's a great time in that regard and almost no one is ever serious. The graphics look slightly better than they did on last generation consoles though really nothing special at this point. The system for customization and leveling was great with in-depth skill trees along with a vast selection of options to make weapons unique. With the depth of customizing every single person you meet will bring various skills or traits to the team.

The Conclusion

As I'm sure many others will say, this is a definite version of Payday 2. It's up to date and has all the DLC along with content from the PC version. Whether it falls behind is yet to be seen though it definitely is loaded with things to do. Remember to play in groups as it really is not a single player experience. While presenting strong cooperative play and customization it's more or less the same as many players are used to. It comes down to whether you've tried the game yet or are a big enough fan to play it once more. Time for some payday!

Payday 2: Crimewave Edition Review on Xbox One
Review Code Provided by Rogers and Cowan

Rating Overall: 7.5